Lady Justice Arden said Britain should get a cooling off period before it has to accept new laws laid down by the European human rights court

Britain should get a cooling off period before it has to accept new laws laid down by the European human rights court, a senior judge said yesterday.

An automatic delay of up to three years should be allowed to allow Parliament and the British courts to argue about instructions from the human rights judges in Strasbourg, Lady Justice Arden said.

Lady Justice Arden, an Appeal judge who speaks for the judiciary on international courts, said the cooling off period would give time to correct Strasbourg's mistakes when it gives orders to Britain.

She said the radical scheme would mean putting 'brakes on national implementation' of European human rights rulings.

Every time the European Court of Human Rights decides to make new rules and impose them on Britain or another country, it should do so only through a 'provisional judgement', she said.

This would give countries 'a generous period of time', possibly three years, to point out mistakes and misunderstandings before they have to make a Strasbourg ruling part of their national law.

Lady Justice Arden's idea is a response to widespread disgust among Tory politicians at the willingness of European judges to overrule the British Parliament, and deepening concerns among judges about interference from Strasbourg.

She said two of the most contentious recent instructions to Britain - the order to give convicted prisoners the right to vote and the ruling which said murderers sent to jail for whole life terms must be given the chance of release - would have been bounced straight back to Strasbourg if the 'provisional judgement' system had been in place.

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In an analysis published yesterday, Lady Justice Arden, who has herself sat as a judge in the Strasbourg court, said Britain was not alone in having rows with the European human rights court and 'there are now many countries which have experienced difficulties with Strasbourg.'

She said: 'A principal badge of judicial accountability in national courts is that judges show restraint in their decision-making and do not venture into those areas which should be left to national parliaments.

'One of the difficulties for Strasbourg is that it is difficult for it to know whether it has gone outside that area of restraint.'

Lady Justice Arden said that if a Strasbourg ruling is a new departure that would force a country like Britain to change its laws, it 'would not issue a binding decision but only a provisional decision.'

This would 'save a lot of friction.'

Lady Justice Arden, who has herself sat as a judge in the Strasbourg court, said Britain was not alone in having rows with the European human rights court

She said that in the case of the prisoner voting decision made by Strasbourg in 2005 - a ruling yet to be obeyed by any British government - European judges had entirely failed to take into account the way British MPs had discussed the issue.

A cooling off period 'would have enabled these details to be flushed out before the judgement was finalised,' Lady Justice Arden said.

A similar delay in the Strasbourg order that whole life prisoners must have a chance of release would have left the European court 'thoroughly undermined' because it would have shown 'a material error in Strasbourg's understanding of our domestic law.'

She added that she 'felt sure' Strasbourg would consider the cooling off period reform.

Lady Justice Arden also said the European human rights court should try to get better quality judges.

'There is always room for improvement here,' she said, adding that the countries that nominate Strasbourg judges should pick people 'qualified and suited' and that there should be 'the highest priority to electing as judges the persons who are best qualified for the role.'